


Creative Problem Solving

by jellybeanforest



Series: Creature Comforts: A Stony Anthology [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blind Date, Getting Together, Hook-Up Apps, M/M, Modern Day Vampires, Online Dating, POTS Stony Stocking, Pre-Slash, Sort Of, Vampire Steve Rogers, Vampire Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29281185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Tony Stark uses a dating app, Bitr, to hook up with fellow vampires. Unfortunately, since his kind does not show up in photographs, he must rely on old-fashioned paintings or outdated photographs and written descriptions, which are typically embellished at best, wildly inaccurate at worst.And then he stumbles upon a profile with an actual, honest-to-God recent photograph showing a vampire in full body paint from the waist up. He can tell the guy is either stacked or a great artist who can realistically contour a fake set of abs on the ample canvas of his invisible potbelly.…Only one way to find out.For FestiveFerret for the POTS Stony Stocking 2020.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Creature Comforts: A Stony Anthology [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041672
Comments: 16
Kudos: 104
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2020





	Creative Problem Solving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FestiveFerret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [FestiveFerret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret) in the [stony_stocking_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2020) collection. 



> FestiveFerret prompted “Vampire Fake Dating.” This is more Vampire Blind Dating, considering vampires can’t be photographed but still manage to make do with modern hookup apps. Thank you to AvengersNewB for helping me with Tony’s username.
> 
> In this story, Steve was turned in the 1940’s when he was in his mid-twenties. Tony was turned in the early 1990’s when he was in his early-twenties.

The vampire prattling on across the table from Tony is tall but paunchy with a lined, sagging face and black Toppik Hair Fibers sprayed generously on the pate of his head while his roots on the side are streaked grey.

He looks nothing like his pictures.

“…and then I told Babbage: ‘Charlie, my good boy, why not create a mechanism to calculate figures? It shouldn’t be so difficult, mathematics following the natural order of things…’”

How stupid, how naive did he think Tony was? Did he really expect him to believe–

“But enough about me; what about you, Tony? You said you attended MIT in 1989, was it? MIT is a bit of a newcomer, certainly no Harvard, but I’m sure you’ve managed to keep up your skills in the interim. Though with how fast that industry moves, no one would fault you for falling behind. Only the brightest among us can keep up with modern society. Like I used to tell the great Benjamin Franklin–”

That does it.

Tony opens his Bitr app, navigating to the man’s profile where he blows up his profile picture of a roughly 25-year-old man in the prime of youth painted around approximately 1712. He turns the screen to face his date. “This you?”

The vampire – Dick – hesitates. “…Yes, I sat for the great Saltini back in my day. He was said to be the next Rubens, if only he didn’t die of a general weakness of the constitution in complete obscurity. It’s always so hard to find good help, even back then.”

Tony understands an artist would try to flatter his patron, especially one so arrogant as present company, but there are limits. The result should bear at least a passing resemblance to the subject, which leads him to one conclusion: “Uh huh. And was this after or twenty-five years before you were turned?”

The man is huffy at the insinuation. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. You know my age. It was clearly posted.”

As if that meant anything. Tony himself was born in 1970, forty-three years walking this Earth but forever twenty-two.

“I expected to meet this man,” he insists, pointedly tapping his screen, “and you look nothing like him. I barely recognized you when I walked through that door.” Tony should have turned around and walked right out and would have, if the man hadn’t seen him and waved him over.

“I didn’t think you’d be so shallow.”

“And I didn’t think you’d be a liar.”

“Everyone _embellishes_ a little. Even you yourself said you were 5’10” when you’re clearly 5’8”,” Dick scoffs with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Tony’s nostrils flare. “5’9 _and a half_ ,” he corrects him, baring his teeth. He doesn’t even know why he’s still here; they’re obviously mismatched, the evening soured and worsening by the minute with every self-serving word, every long-winded name-dropping humblebrag falling from the other man’s mouth. “You know what, Dick–”

“Richard–”

“Whatever,” he says, refusing to let the man interrupt. “This isn’t working; I’m out.”

The man’s lips twist into a sneer, which is odd considering this can’t possibly be the first time he’s been rejected. “And here I thought you wanted to meet someone interesting.”

Tony stands. “Yeah, and then you showed up instead. Funny how that works.”

* * *

Later, after Tony has uncorked and downed a bottle of O negative back in his basement apartment, he snuggles deep within the cocoon of his dark sheets, still horny and more than a little bored, and opens Bitr to scroll through profiles for yet another potential hook-up, but the prospects are slim and somewhat questionable as evidenced by his most recent date.

It would be easier, he thinks, if vampires could actually post recent photos of themselves instead of relying on outdated photographs and old-fashioned paintings from before they were turned. Having himself been turned in the early 1990s, Tony’s own profile picture sported long wet-looking bangs parted in the center and a truly unfortunate sense of style comprised of ill-fitting sweaters and baggy jeans cuffed over the ankle. At the time, American society as a whole had just gotten over the collective hysterical blindness known as 80s fashion, so the pictures were more a sign of the times than personal bad taste. At least he isn’t the worst of his contemporaries, the Lestat wannabes who turned circa “The Interview with the Vampire” and had made Anne-Rice-flavored vampirism their whole persona. At the end of the day, Tony just wanted someone normal who didn’t act and dress like a 1990s version of a 1790s vampire. (Then again, having actually met a vampire from the 1700s, he should probably reassess whether the original is any better.)

The first profile Tony comes across is a baby vampire. Turned in 2009, the man’s pre-vampire photo looks normal enough, but then Tony notices how his skin positively sparkles as if he had applied a subtle layer of glitter.

Ugh. Twilight super-fans are almost as bad as the Lestat cosplayers of his generation. He had met a few, particularly when the movies first came out, and while most were fine, the three or four with stalker tendencies they tried to paint as romantic turned him off to the type entirely.

Pass.

The second is a picture of a bat with the profile description declaring that he doesn’t care about the age of his partner so prospective dates should be similarly open-minded. That usually meant the person looked old enough to be Tony’s parent (or grandparent).

Pass.

There’s a woman really leaning into the sadistic angle of her new identity with the ominous user handle Madame_LeSade.

Pass.

Tony similarly rejects humans, human fetishists – the vampires looking for blood bags to keep as long as they were young and beautiful – and those without written descriptions at all, only breast shots and dick pics they probably cribbed off the internet at large. He isn’t quite sure who would bother to post such lazy profiles, but he’s not nearly thirsty enough to find out.

He’s about to call it a night when something blue catches his eye. It’s a man, naked from the waist up, wearing full body paint smeared over his abs and impressive pectorals. The paint goes up further still, covering his neck with splotches over the lower half of his face revealing a chiseled jaw line, a hint of high cheekbone with a playful splash of color covering his bottom lip and over the tip of his nose. Though Tony can’t quite see his entire face, invisible as it is, he can see that the man is clearly laughing.

Intrigued, Tony clicks on the profile for “RogerThat1918.” His description is short but to the point.

“WWII vet born and raised in Brooklyn. Enjoys Bing Crosby, print books, and bare-knuckle boxing. Amateur artist, professional motorcycle mechanic. Looking for friends, fun, and (hopefully) more.”

He sounds nice, if a little older considering his user handle and interests.

Tony scrolls through his other photos. There are black-and-white photos of a young blond man from the 30s or 40s, sporting a conservative cut styled with pomade and wearing a period-appropriate high pant suit held up by suspenders under a jacket, followed by an photo of the same man in army dress, posing alongside what must have been members of his battalion, his arm flung casually around another handsome soldier, and finally self-portrait of the vampire himself, still youthful but wearing a more modern (though old-fashioned) plaid shirt tucked into his khakis.

Tony wonders if this is what he actually looks like in the flesh. The photos could be old, from well before he turned, and as an artist, he could have used these earlier photos as a reference to paint himself in more modern clothing. Hell, even the body paint could be an optical illusion. Maybe RogerThat1918 can realistically contour a fake set of abs onto the ample canvas of his invisible potbelly. The possibilities are endless and the mind endlessly inventive when faced with a problem (namely how to maximize potential matches). Then again, even if they are fake, he would still be more talented and interesting than anyone Tony has met online in the past eight months.

He double taps to zoom in on the man’s abs. They do seem real.

…Only one way to find out.

He opens the chat window, and types:

 **StarkByte:** Hello Roger, I’m a huge fan of your work already. Great portfolio. I’m sold. I’ve got a blank canvas at my place where you can express yourself. Do you do home visits?

Tony presses send and immediately regrets it. He drops his phone beside him, drags his hands down over his face. That’s what he went with? That’s his opening? It’s so cheesy, so absolutely awful. Tony wishes he could take it back, start over. Will his message still deliver if he deactivates now? Is it too late to–

His phone pings. A response.

 **RogerThat1918:** How big is the canvas?

_Huh. It worked._

**StarkByte:** About 5’9.5” tall, variable width throughout, but overall volume is approximately 2.7 cubic feet.

What are the chances that volume is a meaningful measurement to RogerThat1918?

 **StarkByte:** That’s about 170lbs. I promise I look like my pictures, just with my style updated by about twenty years. Different hair, different clothes, but largely the same.

Tony flinches. Does he come off a little suspect, like ‘The lady doth protest too much’? And so he adds:

 **StarkByte:** I swear I’m normal.

He could kick himself. _Great job, Tony. Because that is what a completely normal vampire would say unprompted._

 **RogerThat1918:** You’ve been on Bitr a while, haven’t you?

 **StarkByte:** Is it that obvious?

 **RogerThat1918:** I’ve met some characters on here, enough to make me take a break for a couple months.

 **StarkByte:** Tell me about it. The last guy I met off Bitr was older, but he looked around my age and sounded nice enough through chat, and when I showed up, he looked like he was probably pushing 60 and couldn’t stop negging me, you know? Like he was trying to cut me down and make me doubt myself enough so I’d feel lucky to have him. I may look young, but I’m not.

 **StarkByte:** It’s like, did he really think I wouldn’t notice? If he was already lying to me, at least have the decency to not act like a dick on top of it.

 **RogerThat1918:** That must have been difficult.

Tony knows he’s talking too much about other men. He doesn’t want to come across as a Negative Nancy.

 **StarkByte:** So tell me about yourself. You fix up motorcycles?

And so they talk over the next couple weeks.

His real name is Steve. He had been turned in the forties when he was hit by enemy fire and a sympathetic French vampire completed the ritual in an attempt to save his life. It had worked, but it took him years to adjust to his new normal. He had been angry, depressed even, especially when everyone he loved aged while he stayed unchanged. Tony hadn’t been a vampire for nearly as long, and both his parents were already dead when he turned, but it’s a fate familiar to all vampires in their first fifty or sixty years. Steve shares more pictures, paintings of his friends, his life through the decades, and finally, of an older human woman, his wife who had passed from Alzheimer’s a few years back. He had loved her, and one of her final wishes (when she had been lucid enough to know what was happening to her) was for him to be happy.

Tony doesn’t know what to say about that, only:

 **StarkByte:** I’m sorry to hear about your wife. I’m sure you made her very happy.

 **RogerThat1918:** I hope so. I really tried, especially toward the end.

In turn, Tony tells him about his life, about the car accident that took both his parents, about his job in tech, specifically virtual reality, and his small circle of friends. He doesn’t tell him about the vampire – Obadiah Stane – that turned him, how he had exploited Tony’s feelings and talents for his own gain until he was able to escape his thrall not five years before. That seems like a conversation for the future, if Steve lasts that long.

 **StarkByte:** I got inspired today.

 **RogerThat1918:** Finally worked through that problem with the neural interface?

 **StarkByte:** Yes, but that’s not what I meant.

Tony clicks to add an attachment. His finger hovers over the photo, before he gives himself a mental shake and taps to send.

It’s a picture of his nude muscular ass, doused in red body paint, his phone number written in black across his cheeks. It had taken him twenty minutes to get exactly right.

An unknown number calls him immediately.

“Hello?”

“Hey” is the breathy answer. At least Steve sounds young. “So, um… does this mean you’re ready to meet?”

_Is he?_

Tony likes Steve more than he ought, and perhaps that's why he has waited so long, but if Steve turns out to be different than expected, then Tony will probably take a long, possibly-permanent break from Bitr.

It's a risk he's willing to take.

“Yes.”


End file.
